Over the past 5-8 years the trend has been for companies to move services online in order to reduce costs streamline business processes and attract wider audiences. Is it time that online and in-store met in the middle of the road?
Moneysupermarket.com may have started this movement with their interactive shop window on
With a little bit of creative thinking there could be bundles of opportunities for online services to appear on the high street:
- Design, save, share and compare your own bathroom/kitchen/living room within the furniture department of a department store
- Use mash-up technology to find products and stock counts when in-store
- Save gondola space in entertainment stores by using the online catalogue to browse music before buying the physical products
- Make more of the valuable space taken up by fitting rooms and reduce the annoying fitting room queues by using photo sharing sites to try on clothes and makeup
Both Tesco and Argos do a good job of blending their online experience with in-store due to their ‘order online and pick up in-store’ offering… but there is still the opportunity to take retail to the next ‘interactive’ level.
